The Yakuza Papers - Battles Without Honor & Humanity (Complete Box Set)
by Kinji Fukasaku
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DVD details
Actor: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Nobuo Kaneko, Tatsuo Umemiya, Tsunehiko WataseDirector: Kinji Fukasaku
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Box set, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 500 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-12-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Homevision
DVD Reviews of The Yakuza Papers - Battles Without Honor & Humanity (Complete Box Set)
DVD Review: A little disappointed...
Summary: 4 Stars
... that I didn't receive the limited edition metal cased version that was listed.
Other than that, the content and quality on this disc is astounding. Highly, highly recommended.
DVD Review: Reign of Bullets!
Summary: 4 Stars
Altho this Fukusaku directed 5 part series defined a major transition in the style of the Japanese yakuza movie, IMO it falls way short of being comparable to "The Godfather" trilogy. Lacking the informational depth and emotional involvement of the players and their lives that Coppola presents, "The Yakuza Papers" limits its scope to the repetive and predictable actions of a bunch of thugs. Treacherous ambush shootings and bully gang beatings beget more of the same on & on thru 5 separate movies. There is a somewhat admirable for loyalty & integrity protagonist well played by Bunta Sugawara who's involvement is often background due to his constantly being in lock up or restrained by parole, plus often avoiding double-cross participation. The pacing of the film makes for good action entertainment, but like "Friday the 13th" there are just so many formula episodes one can take before boredom sets in. In fact, the separate sequel 6th "New Battles Without Honor & Humanity" completely failed to rekindle further interest even with the efforts of the charismatic Sugawara, especially with his portraying a different character than his original Hirono. Besides Sugawara, there are a multitude of great performances by Hiroki Matsukata, Kinya Kitaoji, Sonny Chiba, Noboru Ando, and many other Yakuza movie "stars". Well worth watching, but don't expect "The Godfather".DVD Review: Tough Guy Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great 5-part series detailing the rise of the Yakuza in post-war Japan, more or less based upon real events. Forget about wide-shots: Director Kinji Fukasaku starts with action and keeps it going through all five chapters with hyper-kinetic camera work that was pretty much the opposite of what Kurosawa and Ozu had done in the past couple of decades. You are not observing it from a distance, you (and the camera lens) are RIGHT in the middle of it.. and it's happening all around you, for all five chapters. All this was done long before today's of better-than-real special effects and CGI.
Along with the untraditional camera work, Fukasaku parts ways with another hallmark of the previous 20-years of Yakuza movies: Forget about chivalrous men in Kimonos. The title of the first film, "Battles without Honor & Humanity" lets you know what to expect. Bunta Sugawara plays Hirono, the protagonist criminal around whom all of the action and gang-politics swirls. He's the closest thing to a 'good guy' in this tale of corruption, shifting loyalties, rapidly depleting codes of 'honor' and the constant elbowing and self-promotion that led to the way things still are today. 'Sounds like your workplace? At least your day doesn't end with a harpoon through your foot!
Around the same time in the mid-1970's, Fukasaku also directed other, similar "Cops'n'Yakuzas" movies that are not part of the "Yakuza Papers" narrative, but nevertheless make great side-stories: "Street Mobster", "Sympathy For The Underdog", "Cops Versus Thugs" (with Sugawara on the other side of the badge), "Yakuza Graveyard". Great flicks.
Fukasaku may have been influenced by what was happening in action flicks coming from Hong Kong and Hollywood, and perhaps by "Blaxploitation": He responds by draining the glory & heroism out of violence & revenge, and presenting it in gruesome, painful detail.
HIGHLY recommended!
DVD Review: The Yakuza: Men Without A Moral Compass
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Kinji Fukasaku's five part film set of "The Yakuza Papers" is an important addition to anyones Asian film library. A little background on Kinji Fukasaku might help those to understand why he chose to portray the yakuza as men without honor or decency. Prior to these films, most viewers were most often given the portrayal of the yakuza as having some sort of honor: A sort of 'Bushido Code' similar to the ways of the ancient Samurai. And there were many films which portrayed the yakuza in such a light. However, Kinji Fukasaku knew better. His portrayal of the yakuza is not the loyal and honorable men that many often viewed. In his nihilistic yakuza film "Graveyard Of Honor" his primary goal was to show the audience what really lay behind the unseen world of these thugs: For he knew them well.
In "Graveyard Of Honor" his primary focus was on the yakuza thug Rikio Ishikawa, who was as much a debased human as the yakuza outfit he belonged to. And being that Kinji Fukasaku was from the same village as Rikio Ishikawa, he must have seen a world few of us are privy to. And this is further evident in his yakuza films, as he does not portray them in an honorable light. Prior to these portrayals, one might see the casual to not so casual Zatoichi episode of Katsu Shintaro's disgust with such men, and many times in a comical light. However, in the "Yakuza Papers" Kinji Fukasaku dispels all myths that the yakuza are or were men of honor. The latest box set is well worth the purchase. I remember buying these one at a time years ago on VHS, and this Box set has done the series justice.
The first of this five part film epic introduces the viewer to what will be a 30 year long struggle of gang warfare in Japan after the bombing of Hiroshima. These are violent films, and Fukasaku does not spare the viewer as to how, why and where these thugs were able to rise to power after Japan's defeat in WWII. We are witness to betrayals, deceit and the methods of how the yakuza become organized. Everything in the yakuza clans were modeled along business lines--and we witness the so-called yakuza myth being destroyed. These are vicious gangs who will go through anyone, and everyone to get what the feel belongs to them. As for loyalty, forget about it, there is none. Many of those who started out with the yakuza after the war were former soldiers. One of these is the films primary protagonist Shozo Hirono (Bunta Suguwara). Shozo Hirono is a former soldier who is initiated into the gang after an altercation with another yakuza. As Shozo rises through the ranks, we see his character going through the motions of honor and loyalty--even though his superiors are not entirely of the same mode.
These films are available separately, or in this Boxed Version. I would recommend viewers obtain the Boxed version for several reasons. First, it is less expensive, and also, with the Boxed Version there is also an additional 6th DVD. This additional DVD gives numerous interviews about Fukasaku and his films, and in particular his use of violence in his films. Also, there is included a pretty good booklet by Patrick Macias. The five films that make up this epic are: 1."Battles Without Honor & Humanity" 2. "Deadly Fight In Hiroshima" 3. "Proxy War" 4. "Police Tactics" 5. "Final Episode." The transfers in all the films are very good--excellent in fact. Also, I have seen these films available in many video rental stores, so if you are hesitant, then you might want to rent them first. However, I HIGHLY recommend the Boxed set if you go ahead and decide to purchase them. [Stars: 5+]
DVD Review: Quality in Quantity
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like gritty gangster movies, buy this boxed set right now. It is a shame that Fukasaku-san is no longer with us, he had a lot of lessons that he could have taught the people who produce and direct todays gangster-pablum. I have recently recieved these episodes from an online movie rental service, my interest in Fukasaku-san's films being piqued by "Battle Royal", and I was not disappointed.
The films are all brilliantly written and brilliantly directed. When this is paired with the excellent job done by every actor/actress in the series, you are left with an extremely solid series. What more can a film fan ask for?
If you are interested in Japanese film and culture, and as obsessed with organized crime (especially the Yakuza, the smoothest of criminals) as I am, you will love this series. If you can't follow the fast paced storyline or the realistic violence: Stay home! This series is for the hardcore only.
Fans of mass-produced Hollywood/network T.V. garbage need not apply.
Description of The Yakuza Papers - Battles Without Honor & Humanity (Complete Box Set)
In the wake of the Bomb, ex-soldier Shozo Hirono [Bunta Sugawara] joins a Hiroshima yakuza gang, the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia-and then the shootings, slashings, betrayals, and scheming begin. Premiering a year after The Godfather, The Yakuza Papers also broke box office records and spawned sequels, but, in contrast, took a ruthlessly de-romanticized view of the underworld. Based on an actual gang boss's memoirs, The Yakuza Papers plunges the audience into a gritty, brutal, violent newsreel of a three-decade struggle for power of Shakespearean complexity, a nihilistic epic unlike any other.While The Godfather romanticized the American Mafia in the early 1970s, Kinji Fukasaku's five-film series known as The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor & Humanity revolutionized the Japanese yakuza film with unprecedented intensity. A post-World War II epic that broke Japanese box-office records, this complex, utterly authentic cycle of gangster films replaced the popular ninkyo or "chivalry" films of the '60s with jitsuroku, an entirely new breed of gangster film that rose from the ashes of Hiroshima and post-war reconstruction, depicting a meticulously detailed "alternate history" (as Japanese film expert Tom Mes observes in the accompanying booklet) that had been ignored by the "official" factual record. Beginning with 1973's Battles Without Honor and Humanity and continuing through four hugely popular sequels, these are bracingly intricate studies in shifting loyalties and gangland chaos, tracking the yakuza career of Shozu Hirono (played by charismatic star Bunta Suguwara), who rises from lowly soldier status in 1946 to "sworn brotherhood" and respected retirement in 1970. Across this quarter-century of death, power, and betrayal, Fukasaku orchestrates nearly 50 characters in four major cities, all vying for dominance in a familial structure so complex that a helpful flow-chart is provided to follow the shifting balance of power.
Western viewers may struggle with the social context of these films, but as a gangster epic of escalating scope and power, The Yakuza Papers offers a universally energizing DVD experience. Fukasaku (who died in January 2003 while filming his 62nd film, Battle Royale II) was a master of cinematic pulp, and these films represent the pinnacle of his frenetic, deliberately chaotic hand-held camera style, which strongly influenced American urban crime films of the '70s (as French Connection director William Friedkin notes on the feature-packed supplement disc). Rough-edged and thematically rich, the five films presented here--all in pristine digital transfers and brilliantly translated by ace subtitler Linda Hoaglund--combine to form a sprawling milestone of Japanese cinema. Home Vision's packaging and comprehensive supplements pay honorable tribute to Fukasaku's achievement, with bonus features that provide all the necessary background needed to fully appreciate The Yakuza Papers as a raw, ambitious masterpiece that fully deserves its widespread acclaim. --Jeff Shannon
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